


Engineered Fragility

by Anyawen



Series: Technomage [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest 2020, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Long Drabble, Technomage, They Might Be Dating, and bad jokes, james has good suggestions, magical engineering, pre-00Q, team00
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25257427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyawen/pseuds/Anyawen
Summary: Bond calls his Technomage Quartermaster to discuss an idea, and a dinner date.
Relationships: James Bond & Q
Series: Technomage [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779154
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Engineered Fragility

"Q."

"Yes, 007? Do you require assistance?"

"No, Quartermaster. I had a question."

"Go ahead."

"I'm afraid I can't offer dinner at the moment, but perhaps Greek when I get back—"

"One moment, 007," Q replied, and Bond heard a faint click and knew that Q had moved their conversation to a private line.

"Greek sounds lovely.”

“It's a date, then," Bond replied, smiling faintly at the sound of Q clearing his throat.

"I suppose it is," he agreed after a moment. "So you'd best come back in one piece."

"That's actually related to what I wanted to ask you."

"Oh?"

"You said you didn't spell your tech to be unbreakable so that you didn't limit the options such that the most breakable thing in the encounter was the agent."

"True. You are fragile enough already."

"Have you thought about coming at the problem from another angle?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Can you design something to break? Engineer it so that it's the most likely thing to take damage? Then you can strengthen our gear so that it might survive some of our more destructive tendencies."

"That's not a bad idea," Q mused. "Even without the corollary of augmenting your weapons, having something that bleeds off the pressure could be quite beneficial ... Of course, we'd have to figure out what it should be. Something small and light. Something that all agents could carry without raising anyone's suspicions."

"A key fob?"

"Hmmm. That could work, but you'd have to have it with you. Might seem a bit odd for you to try to fit your car keys in your swim trunks."

"You might be surprised what fits in my swim trunks."

Q wheezed with laughter, and Bond grinned.

"That was terrible, Bond. Truly. Try harder."

"Yes, Quartermaster," Bond replied, unrepentant.

"So, then. As I was saying, something small that you can carry with you—"

"Perhaps a coin?" Bond suggested. "No one would question finding a fifty pence piece in our pockets. Or a quarter, or a euro, or any local currency."

"Oh, now that has promise. We'd need to identify it well enough that you don't spend it by mistake, but coins regularly take a beating so adding a standardized scratch you'll recognize should work."

"So, it's a good idea?"

"It's definitely an idea worth investigating. I'll work on it."

"Extra baklava with dinner?"

"Obviously. And don't be late."

**Author's Note:**

> The first fic in this series, written for a prompt in the 2020 LDWS challenge, was constrained to be exactly 400 words long. All the other fics in the series have followed that format. Word count by wordcounter.io.


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